Not sure what you mean by this? Do you mean they are embedded within the files? If so, the J3 should be able to read most of them, although as far as I know, there are some issues with this implementation on the J3. Its better just to have a cover.jpg file in each album folder. If you need to extract the embedded files from your music files, I believe MediaMonkey has a script that does this.

As was asked above... do you mean (a) you have imbedded album art in the tags of each music file, or (b) do you have them somewhere on your PC in one single collection in some "music folder"?

If they're imbedded in tags, you can leave them there. When you copy those music file to the J3 they will be detected from inside the tags and will display properly on the J3 when you play those music files. It is NOT necessary to make them external "cover.jpg" in the containing album folder.

However the "cover.jpg" approach WILL ALSO WORK, if you want to remove the imbedded tags from music files and place one "cover.jpg" version into the containing album folder. This has the advantage of eliminating unnecessary duplication of the same album art JPG being imbedded in multiple music file tags for tracks from the same album... as long as your music files from that album are all in the same \Album folder anyway. So if your collection is organized \Music\Artist\Album then "cover.jpg" is perfectly acceptable and is maximally efficient. Also it's easier to upgrade your album art if you find a better one, since there's only one "cover.jpg" to replace instead of updating all of the music files which had the original duplicate imbedded album art JPG.

You can use MP3Tag to remove the imbedded album art from each tag. That's the easy part, actually, as they can ALL be removed together, with a single mouse click, assuming your PC music collection all lives under one high-level parent folder. This is single-click easy.

But that obviously shouldn't be done until you first work through your PC collection one "album folder" at a time (hopefully that's how your PC collection is organized) and extract one imbedded album art JPG at a time from that folder, storing the extracted JPG as "cover.jpg" in that same "album folder". This is a one-folder-at-a-time job, but you'll only have to do it this once. And you only have to do this for one music file in each album folder, in order to produce the one single external "cover.jpg" you want for each "album folder", as all the other music files have a duplicate of that first imbedded album art JPG in their tags. So they can simply be "cleansed" of their imbedded album art.

When you've finished creating your one-per-album "cover.jpg", now you can use MP3Tag to single-click remove all of the remaining imbedded album art JPG's from the other music files in your collection.

So you will end up with no imbedded album art JPG's, and one "cover.jpg" per "album folder". And now you can copy the whole thing from your PC's parent "music folder" over to the J3's parent \Music folder (or onto a split between internal storage \Music and external storage \Music) and album art will work perfectly on the J3.

they're 'cover.jpg' files in PC music folder[350GBs]. Got 32GBs music on J3, so just want to copy those files. All ID3-tagged.

So what's the question?

Just duplicate your PC collection on the J3 (reduced, of course, to the 32GB limit)... including each cover.jpg. Just like on your PC collection, just place the one cover.jpg album art image for each album in the corresponding album folder on the J3. What's the question?

I assume you have your PC music collection organized along the lines of something like \My Music\Artist\Album and in each of the \Album folders you have one cover.jpg.

As has been explained previously, this is EXACTLY how you can copy it to the J3... again with one cover.jpg in each \Album folder. That is EXACTLY how the J3 understand where to find album art for the music files played from that album folder (as long as there is no imbedded art in the ID3 tag, in which case the imbedded art will take precedence over the cover.jpg art in the album folder).

Pure "physical" folders, on your J3's internal and external storage. Exactly the same as a true "physical" folder on any Windows drive letter, as viewed through Windows Explorer.

The J3 considers the lowest-level physical folder in which a music file lives to be the "album folder", even if it's not really that. But the J3 treats all physical music files within that same physical folder as if they were the music files from that single "album" (even if they're not). As such, if there is a "cover.jpg" file also in that physical folder it is treated as the default album art image for any physical music file in that [album] folder which does not have its own imbedded album art inside its tag.

My collection is organized by \MP3\Artist\Album... "physically".

The following shows my PC collection (which is duplicated on my J3, except under \Music as the parent folder name instead of under \MP3 as it is on my PC). In this screenshot you can see the alphabetical list of physical artist folders (satisfying the \MP3\Artist portion) and then within each physical artist folder (e.g. Christina Aguilera in the screenshot) there is one physical sub-folder for each individual album by that artist (satisfying the \MP3\Artist\Album portion).

And then within each physical album sub-folder for that physical artist folder, all of the individual physical music files are stored, along with one single "cover.jpg" album art image. This single album art JPG gets displayed by the J3 whenever any physical music file in that physical album folder is played... as long as there is no imbedded album art in the tag of that music file (in which case the imbedded art is displayed instead).

With Windows Explorer, when you look at any folder by default you see a purely physical alphabetically ascending sequence of contents, both sub-folders and files.

That's what i mean by "physical", and on the J3 when you browse the equivalent way as if you were using Windows Explorer you will also see every folder and sub-folder and file in purely alphabetically ascending sequence, by the external physical folder and file name.

And on the J3 the way you browse "physically" is Library -> [Folders]. That's how you start, and everything after that is by definition "physical" and in purely alphabetical sequence. And in the lowest-level physical album folder (as I've shown above) that's where "cover.jpg" physically goes.

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I navigate to my files through, music --> songs. or music --> playlists as I like the MTP .pla files for playlists.

You are not browsing "physically" with these methods. Library -> [Songs] and Library -> [Playlists] and Library -> [Artists], etc. these are all examples of "logical" browsing, not "physical" browsing. You're not actually browsing through the physical folder/file structure of your organization... you're actually browsing through the J3's "tags database", built at boot time by examining all music files and extracting their tag data field values.

If you have the same internal tag field values (e.g. for "artist", "title", "album", etc.) as you have used in your physical external folder/file structure, I can appreciate how it might seem ambiguous what you are actually browsing and looking at when you see any list. But the fact is that "physical" browsing (i.e. Library -> [Folders]) will show lists in alphabetical order by their EXTERNAL NAME. And music files will also display showing their extension as well as their external name. When you browse "logically", what appears as an "album" is not the external physical \Album folder, but rather the internal "album" tag field value.

To avoid confusion you really should be consistent, and use exactly the same values for both your external physical folder/file names as you use for the corresponding internal tag field values. Believe me, this will really simply your life... as (for me) does organizing my collection as \Music\Artist\Album.

But even if you browse "logically" to play music, the use of "cover.jpg" in a physical album folder is a purely "physical" notion, relating to how you've got the physical folder/file structure of your collection. The physical folder containing a music file is treated by the J3 as if it were the "physical album folder", and if there is a "cover.jpg" file in that folder then it is considered as the album art to be displayed for any physical music file in that physical [album] folder, as long as there is no imbedded album art in the tag of that file.

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Does this cover.jpg method work with MTP?

Completely unrelated. Apples and oranges. These have nothing to do with each other. Shouldn't be mentioned in the same discussion.

The lowest-level physical folder in which a music file is stored is simply considered as the "album" folder by the J3. Call it whatever you want, it is still the lowest-level folder in your organization and contains one or more music files inside of it.

And within each of these lowest-level [album] folders, if there is a "cover.jpg" file stored there then it is considered to be the default album art image to be displayed by the J3 whenever any physical music file in that physical folder is played, as long as there is no imbedded album art within the tag of that music file.

Just one final wrinkle you may or may not already know about...

When you browse "logically" (e.g. Library -> [Albums], or Library -> [Artists] -> individual albums by that artist, etc.) what is shown as "artist" is not the external folder level considered to be artist (in my organization). It is the internal tag field "artist" value. And what shows as "album" is the internal tag field "album" value.

So when you are browsing "logically" and you get down to the logical music files seemingly within a logical album, what you are really seeing is the "title" tag field value from within those physical music files, under the "album" tag field value from within those physical music files, under the "artist" tag field value from within those physical music files. The J3 has built a "tags database" using these values and sorted things for maximum usefulness when it presents things to you. And the sequence of these logical "artists" and "albums" is alphabetical (but again... these are the internal tag field values you are seeing, not the external physical folder/file names).

However once you get into a single album (and again, this is a logical "album" consisting of all music files that have the same internal "album" tag field value, no matter what physical folder they might live in), the J3 presents the music files in sequence by "track number" tag field value. This is just as if you'd put a physical CD in a physical CD player and started playing with track #1. The player would next play track #2, #3, etc. And this is exactly what the J3 wants to do when you are looking at a "logical album" comprised of all the music file "titles" (from tags) which have the identical "album" value in their tags: track number sequence, because they thought you'd want this. So it's important that you also have valid and correct internal "track number" values in your tags, so that this logical album presentation can be in true track number sequence.

One note about this final concept: if you have multiple music file types in one logical album folder (e.g. MP3 and FLAC music files from the same album), the J3 will first present all the MP3 files in track number sequence, and will then present all the FLAC files in track number sequence. Two separate sub-groups, each sequenced by track number within that sub-group.

Don't ask me why they did that... but I'm sure it comes from how they built the tags database.

And then within each physical album sub-folder for that physical artist folder, all of the individual physical music files are stored, along with one single "cover.jpg" album art image. This single album art JPG gets displayed by the J3 whenever any physical music file in that physical album folder is played... as long as there is no imbedded album art in the tag of that music file (in which case the imbedded art is displayed instead).

Thank you! This method works, the only problem now is that the main menu background (where the settings icon is etc.) is now forces as the album background -.- Any ideas?